European Association of History Educators

After a very concentrated and active meeting in Bolu, in January 2009, over 60 History Educators from across Turkey, representing Teacher Training Institutes, as well as schools – primary and secondary – will meet in Kizilcahamam, Turkey, between 12-14th March. The Project A Key to Europe, Innovative Methodology in Turkish School History, so far has been very productive, and in this workshop, the project participants will be taking another step forward in the developmental process of creating innovative educational material, express their opinions and ideas, so that the work can be continued in a positive and common direction, with regards to the key questions, activities and sources.The workshop will specifically aim to continue to raise awareness about moving from theory to practice, inform about the second year of the project and continue the ongoing capacity-building of the Association of Turkish History Educators.EUROCLIO executive-director Joke van der Leeuw-Roord will host presentations on 'where we are' in the project. In addition, there will be a focus upon ICT in history education through the international workshops from Project Manager Jonathan Even-Zohar (EUROCLIO), Doug Belshaw (Director of e-learning, Church of England Academy, Northumbria, UK) and Nick Dennis (Assistant Head, Felsted School, Essex, UK). The project management will use this event as an opportunity and assess and analyse the ongoing development of the project to meet the aims and objectives as originally set out. Whilst in Ankara, the project management team will liaise with the Royal embassy of The Netherlands in Turkey to keep the representation updated on the project. For more information, please contact Jonathan Even-Zohar at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . A draft program can be downloaded here.

From 4 to 7 March, EUROCLIO project manager Steven Stegers, along with members of the award-winning EUROCLIO project History In Action Emina Dautovic (Serbia) and Melisa Foric (Bosnia-Herzegovina), will be participating in Anna Lindh Forum for Intercultural Dialogue between people across the Mediterranean. Launched in Barcelona, the forum includes over 900 representatives from civil society organizations. Steven Stegers will present the Historiana project but will also speak as an expert on cities, migrants and diversity, more specifically on valuing diversity and understanding migration. As part of the forum, the live debate, “Bridging the Gap in Mutual Perceptions between people across the Mediterranean” will be held from 9:30 to 11:00 on 5 March. All interested parties can view or join the debate via the Anna Lindh website.  The debate can also be followed on Twitter by using the hashtag #forum2010.

This year, from 2 to 4 July, the UK-based Schools History Project will be hosting their annual conference. The focus of the conference will be discussion on the creation of a more diverse history curriculum would help young people to gain better understanding of the past. The School History Project was set up in 1972 and since then it has campaigned for a history curriculum that would encourage students to become curious and passionate about history.  During the Conference approximately 30 workshops will be conducted; furthermore there are planned some plenary sessions that will focus on important aspects of history education and ways to improve teaching and learning efficiency. This event will take a place at Leeds Trinity University Collage in Leeds, UK. For more information you can visit the website: http://www.schoolshistoryproject.org.uk/conference/confcurrent/index.htm

On February 20, 2010 an article on the EUROCLIO/MATRA project in Georgia written by Klara    Baratashvili was published in Caucasian Knot, a website which deals with a broad range of regional issues. Klara Baratashvili, a leading representative of the Meskhetian minority in Georgia, attended the last project workshop in Tbilisi in January 2010. In her article she describes in details the efforts done by the project team members to address the role of ethnic minorities in Georgian history when developing innovative educational materials for the classroom. She also interviews several of the project coordinators on the approaches and methods developed within the project. Klara Baratashvili ends her article pointing out the issues  mainly related to language which hamper the inclusion of the national minorities in the Georgian educational system, a challenge for the authorities.

To read the whole article (in Russian), follow this link. You can also read a (google) translation of the article into English.